


The Troll Abomination Called Family

by arcaneCalligramancer



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternia-Focused, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Trigger Warning: Body Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-01-26
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcaneCalligramancer/pseuds/arcaneCalligramancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trolls without lusii are culled.  This is an inevitable fact of life on Alternia - not even a law, for who would guard and raise a troll but their fated lusus?</p>
<p>Well, Perrut would.  He knew there was a reason why so few pack-animals were lusii...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Your name is PERRUT KORDIS.

Once you might have expressed an interest in ALTERNIAN SECRET HISTORY and even the discovery of such via PSEUDO-ARCHEOLOGICAL ADVENTURES. Your respiteblock was strewn with PUTATIVELY ANCIENT KNICKNACKS OF DUBIOUS PROVENANCE. Lately, however, your taste has shifted to ALTERNIAN BIOLOGY and TROLL EVOLUTION, an unusual focus for a troll of only six solar sweeps. TEXTBOOKS OF VARYING QUALITY now line the walls.

You also used to make a living by partaking in the many and varied forms of HIGH-STAKES ROLEPLAYING, but you haven't really had time for that recently, which bodes poorly for any chance of finishing your STRIFE SPECIBI COLLECTION. You and your LUSUS have been busy making sure you had enough food and supplies on hand – difficult when you live so far from civilization!

You hoped to join the venerable and honorable EDGETERMINATORS and thus practiced with a WICKED COOL SWORD from time to time. This past sweep has seen you practice A LOT MORE, but your hopes are DOWN THE DRAIN. You don't have time to change to the new Trollian chat client, and so are stuck with the more established TrollIM. Your trolltag is acrimoniousTemplar and you are too tired to put up with this quirky bullshit.

* * *

Perrut's day began, with the harsh clangor of his alarm, a half-hour before sunset. “Ugh,” he grunted, then yawned and pulled himself out of his recuperacoon. It was the work of a moment to carefully scrape off the excess sopor-slime gathering on his hair and pronged horns, and dump the collected goo back into the 'coon to be sanitized. Once the recuperacoon began to hum as its self-cleaning function kicked in, he padded to the ablution block.

The ablution trap was gurgling quietly in the corner of the room, slowly heating up the water for the shower. Perrut eyed the hot water handle longingly for a moment, then shook his head mournfully and stripped down. His trap didn't have a very big water heater, and it wasn't very quick to heat up, either – but it did keep the water constantly lukewarm, at least. He could live with that.

A few minutes later, he staggered out of the shower's spray, shivering. Lukewarm was all well and good, but it was third fall, and that meant it was cold out. He toweled off and dressed as quickly as he could, gathering up last night's clothes and dumping them in the hamper. They landed with a sodden squelch and the scent of stale sopor-slime, and Perrut winced. He would have to find time to do the laundry soon. His stomach growled, loud enough to echo in the ablution block, and he grinned. Chores could wait until after breakfast.

Iritus was waiting in the kitchen. The lupent eyed Perrut, then sat up a little straighter and yawned. He was presented with his lusus' maw of massive, gleaming ivory fangs, before the lupent's muzzle shut again. Iritus smoothly rose to his feet, stretching (incidentally exposing the long, curved talons tipping his paws) and pushing past Perrut – and then turning back around and shoving the troll into the kitchen with one mighty headbutt.

“Augh – _fuck_ you! I was going to make breakfast anyway!”

Iritus made a cheerful chuffing sound and rattled the hollow quills on his head and shoulders. Perrut glared at his lusus for a moment longer, then gave it up as a bad job and started pulling out the makings of that evening's breakfast. A few minutes later, a pot of seed-mash was simmering, slices of smoked swinebeast hissed and browned, and the last batch of fried cluckbeast eggs was almost done. Just in time, too – Iritus lifted his head up from his paws, and then hastily scrambled out of the way as a pair of trolls came racing down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Hah! I win – oh, evenin', boss!”

“Evening, sir!”

Perrut turned off the burners on the stove and added a double handful of red starberries to the seed-mash. “You two are up early, on your own and everything,” he said to the two other trolls, as he started distributing food. He ladled dollops of seed-mash into three bowls and grinned lopsidedly at the others. “Anybody'd think you were excited about something today – but I can't think of anything _important_ , though. Can you, Iritus?”

Iritus whurfled and rattled his quills confusedly, then thumped his scaly tail on the floor twice when Perrut tossed him a whole side of smoked swinebeast. He'd have to mop later, but his lusus' patience had limits.

One of the two trolls sputtered at their teasing. “B-boss!”

Perrut grinned at her indignant tone. “Yes, Varana? And don't talk with your mouth full,” he added, as she opened her mouth to start scolding. He could have gone all day without seeing that disgusting mouthful of glop.

Pouting, Varana chewed ostentatiously and swallowed. “You's knowin' 'zactly what day it is, boss!” Next to her, Trivam nodded emphatically.

“We finally get to go to the schoolhive!” he added, bouncing excitedly in his chair. Perrut couldn't help but grin again at his excitement. He reached across the table and tousled the boy's hair, grinning more broadly at Trivam's flailing and pouting.

“You do – once you finish your breakfasts _and_ get cleaned up.”

Saying that turned out to be a mistake on Perrut's part. Five minutes later, Varana and Trivam rushed back upstairs, racing for the ablution block, and Iritus hesitantly poked his head out from around the corner, watching a grumbling Perrut wipe up the food-splattered mess that was the kitchen. Irritation was writ plainly on the troll's face, so the lusus ducked back around the corner, then returned a moment later to deposit the cracked bones of the swinebeast side on the middle of the table.

He turned tail and fled when Perrut's face flushed blue with rage, and was already on another floor when the shouting started.

Perrut took a deep breath, and then another when the first didn't help banish the haze of blue clouding his vision. He hated his temper, sometimes – he had an unnaturally short fuse, even for a troll. His lusus was just testing his control, but he wished Iritus could be a little less blatant about it. Or at least less messy. He might have passed the test (he didn't smash anything, after all – this was progress!) but it still left him with more to clean up. Perrut pushed his roiling anger down deep, where he could ignore it until it fizzled out, then got back to work.

The kids were quick to get ready, and came stomping down the stairs with Iritus trailing after by the time Perrut put the last of the dishes into the scrubber.

“We's ready t'go, boss!” announced Varana. She and Trivam were bundled up to face the cold of a third fall night, so much so that even slender Trivam looked almost bulky. They'd both patched their coats with their emblems – a bisected circle in maroon for Trivam and a yellow-green, heavily stylized troll skull for Varana. Perrut eyed the symbols for a moment, then shrugged. Most trolls didn't choose an emblem until after they finished their mandatory sweep at the schoolhive, but if they wanted to pick early, who was he to tell them no?

“Right then, time to go,” he said, throwing on his own coat.

“Boss, ya should get an emblem too! Like us!” Varana spun in a circle, revealing the much larger version of her emblem sewn onto the back of her coat.

“Who's to say I don't already have one?” They trotted at Perrut's heels, following him down the hall and out the door. He waited for his lusus to amble out the door before locking it behind them.

“ _I_ says it!” Varana seemed offended that Perrut hadn't immediately seen her idea for the genius insight that it was.

Trivam spoke up. “Um, your coat looks like it used to have an emblem, sir.” Perrut looked over his shoulder at the boy, who paled and began to babble. “Ah! Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to - “

“Relax,” interrupted Perrut. “And breathe.” He waited for Trivam to calm down, smiled a little at Varana's concerned patting of the boy's back, and continued. “And good eye, too. I did have an emblem once. I got rid of it a while ago; it was bad luck.”

“Bad luck, sir?”

“The worst.”

They walked on in silence, breath steaming in the early night air. Fallen leaves crunched underfoot, and soon the kids made a game of trying to make as much noise as possible, darting around the bare white trees and kicking up great clouds of leaves. Perrut would have yelled at them for attracting attention, but it was a rare beast indeed that would brave a lupent, even for a tasty meal of troll-child, and they both knew it.

And, of course, he and Iritus had taken a few days last week to track down those that might have made a try at it anyway. There wasn't anything bigger than a boar swinebeast for miles around.

They tired of the game after Varana leaped into a drift of brilliant red and gold leaves, only to send a curved branch spinning through the air and bounce it off of Iritus' flank. The lupent's red-eyed glare and low, rumbling growl sent both kids scurrying back to Perrut's side.

Perrut just shook his head. “We're here,” he said, distracting them from their half-worried glances at the irritated lusus.

'Here' was simple grey building, three times the size of his hive, sitting next to a round landing pad. Perrut led them inside, and harsh fluorescent lights flickered on to greet them. The inside was nearly as dingy as the outside – all dingy off-white walls and a floor of some pale blue-ish stone. A small desk sat near one wall, bolted to the floor and dotted with interface-ports.

“Welcome,” he said to his companions, spreading his arms as if he was embracing the very building, “to the transport hub.”

They craned their necks, looking around, and then Trivam said, “It's very boring, sir.”

“Yeah, boss, it should be way less boring!”

Perrut frowned, then shrugged. “Remember, I'm the only one that comes here anymore, and I only come to pick up my food-stipend. It used to be nicer, but the lawnring this place was built to serve...” He trailed off at Varana's stricken look. Trivam pulled her into a hug, and Perrut winced a little to see it.

Oh god, they were going to be eaten alive at the schoolhive.

He cleared his throat and continued. “The hub is still technically active and serving, because my hive is still in the system, but besides us, and Akhila when she visits, nobody comes here but the maintenance droids.” Trivam perked up a little at that – he was always fascinated by droids and other examples of exotic mechanical technology.

Perrut walked around to the other side of the desk, and beckoned the other two to follow him. “Now, watch this, kids,” he said, once they were standing next to him. He struck a pose, his hands held out over the desktop like he was typing at an invisible computer, and summoned his husktop from tesseract-space. It appeared beneath his fingertips, booting up with a barely-audible purr.

Varana clapped excitedly. “Sylladexes are cool, boss! When's we getting 'em?” Perrut grinned at a successful distraction.

“If your grades are good, we'll see.” He actually already had a pair of sylladices in storage (within his own sylladex, and wasn't that a mindfuck and a half?), but he had yet to steel himself to going through their contents. He'd have the opportunity while Varana and Trivam were away now, though, and that meant he was out of excuses. He really wasn't looking forward to that.

He forced himself to focus. He had things that needed to be done. “All right, you two, watch carefully,” he said, and plugged the husktop into the desk. A window immediately popped up on the screen. “Most of the work in programming these transportation flitters are already done for us – all we need to do is input the destination coordinates. For now we'll be using my account, because I know for a fact that you would steal a flitter to take it apart, Trivam, and you'd help for the hell of it, Varana, don't think I didn't catch you making that face.” He turned and glared at them, but they just looked innocently back at him. After a moment, he gave it up as pointless and turned back to the husktop.

“Once we get logged in, we just input the destination coordinates – here – and tick this box to make sure the flitter stays for the return trip – here. You can add other destinations, or have it leave and return again at a later time, but that's more complicated than you need it to be right now. For now, we'll stick with the simple there-and-back trip, right? Right.” He hit the confirmation button and leaned back. There was a brief moment of silence, and then a sudden rattling commotion on the other side of the wall, and he smirked when both kids jumped.

He shut the husktop down, unhooked the connectors, and deposited it back in his sylladex. The other two had already run outside, and he could hear their high, excited babble and his lusus' warning growls. The lupent never did like the flitters. He patted the sylladex-casing at his hip and made his way outside.

The flitter was a low-slung, slate-grey box, with stubby wings and a tinted bubble canopy big enough for a half-dozen trolls. It hovered inches above the ground, dust and leaf-litter dancing and sparking beneath the hover-disks arrayed underneath it. Perrut arrived just in time to haul Trivam out from underneath it by his coat.

“Ack – sir! I was just trying to get a closer look at the - “

“We don't go crawling under the mysterious hovercraft, kid.” Perrut held him at eye level by the back of his coat until the boy nodded, then put him back down. Varana was immediately on him, throwing the boy into a headlock.

“Yeah, I'z tellin' ya not ta do that, boss'd get mad - “ She alternated between eying Perrut to see if he bought it and furiously grinding her knuckles into Trivam's scalp.

“ _Ack_ – get off me, darn it!” He twisted in her grasp and she let go with a yelp, only barely avoiding his long, curved horns. She lunged forward again immediately, all thoughts of tricking Perrut abandoned in favor of beating the smaller boy up.

Trivam was ready, dodged her charge, and put her in a headlock of his own. He started noogieing her back in revenge, her short twisting horns not nearly as big a threat, when Iritus had enough and let out a warning roar.

It wasn't a loud roar, as they went, but both trolls leaped apart immediately. “Thanks for that, buddy,” Perrut said, and then looked at them. He was already having second thoughts about the whole schoolhive idea. Hell, he'd call the whole thing off right then and there – except he'd already begged Akhila into hacking the schoolhive's systems, and adding in two more students. If they didn't show, the Ministry of Education might look into their absence (schoolfeeding was expensive, and Ministers looked poorly on money-wasting Administratorturers), and catching the attention of the system so blatantly could not go any way but poorly.

He licked his lips. “I – look. I want you both to look out for each other, all right? Stick together. Most of the other students will be alone, so you're at an advantage if some jumped-up brinesucker decides to start shit - “

“Don't worry, boss! I'll stomp 'em good if'n there's a fight!” Varana stood up straight, hands on her hips, chin stuck out and her small tusks bared in a parody of a threatening expression.

“And when she knocks them down, sir, I'll kick them in the head!” Trivam grinned cheekily.

“Good kids,” Perrut said, and then threw dignity to the winds and pulled them both into a hug. “Listen to the education servitors, too, their warden-drones won't take shit and if you come back beaten by one of them I won't be sympathetic at all. Remember to drink lots of water before you take your learning lozenge, otherwise you might throw it up - “

“Don't _worry_ , sir, we'll be fine!” They both had wriggled free, looking embarrassed, Varana especially. Fearsome Berserkillers didn't tolerate hugs, apparently.

Perrut flushed, sharing the shame, and opened the flitter's hatch. “Get going, both of you. Haul that lever, and it'll take off – do it again to come back, and if one of you leaves the other behind tonight I swear I will feed you both to Iritus.”

They laughed, and clambered inside. The hatch shut after them, and he stepped back as the low hum of the hover-disks grew suddenly louder. They were both pressed up against the canopy, waving madly. Perrut waved back even as the flitter rose higher, then rotated and took off towards the south.

Iritus made a low, worried groaning sound, and Perrut patted the lupent's head. “Me too, big guy. Me too. Let's get back, though. I've got work to do.”

The trip back to his hive was far quieter than he would have liked. Iritus paced by his side, his stiff tail and twitching quills signs of discomfort. Every so often, he would issue another low moan, and the quills would rattle and flush blue-purple for a second.

As soon as Perrut had the door unlocked, the lupent pushed past and headed past the kitchen and down the hall. A moment later, he could hear his lusus scratching and shuffling – digging another tunnel. The foundations of his hive were riddled with the things, relics of a fretting lusus. A lupent in the wild would dig false burrows when a member of the pack was wounded or sick, to throw off other predators.

He just shook his head and headed up to his bedroom. Iritus would dig until he calmed down, or exhausted himself and calmed down that way. In the meantime, Perrut had some work to do.

He cleared off his desk by the simple expedient of shoving the pile of biology books onto the floor, then took a deep breath and drew out two more sylladices. His own sylladex grew uncomfortably warm, but he ignored it and stared at the two cases in his hands. Both were scuffed and battered, the damage as fresh as when he had put them into storage, more than a sweep ago.

“Goddamnit, Kordis, stop being such a nooksniffer and get to work,” he told himself. He flipped both cases over and held down the recessed reset-tabs. A second passed, then both sylladices disgorged their contents with a muted _pop_. The sylladices' former owners were captchalogue-happy, and so his desk was suddenly flooded with junk – swords and knives and spears, FLARP manuals, old issues of _Gamegrub_ , and all sorts of other shit. A photograph was buried under a FLARP campaign participation badge, and Perrut knew even before he picked it up that he was going to regret looking at it.

There he was, in a Robed Dervisheikh outfit, the proud leader of a brand new FLARP team. There was Akhila and her goddamn battle-puppet, a Petticoat Seagrift with a truly ridiculous hat. Barzik in his slip-shod Ironmonger Woodsman outfit, with the ax he was so proud of. Ruilzi and her spear and her big goofy grin, the worst Hyperborean Spearwoman any of them had ever heard of...

He crumpled the picture in one hand, snarling a curse, and hurled his chair across the room. It bounced off the wall and landed, upside down, next to his recuperacoon. He trembled, hands twitching, then sank against his desk with a sigh. Keeping a tight reign on his temper was hard. It was hard, and nobody understood.

Perrut carefully smoothed the photo out and looked down at his old friends. Barzik would have understood, he thought. “Goddamn, you guys,” he said aloud. “How the fuck did I end up here?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Boss, can you tell us another story?” Varana was tired enough to forgo her usual enthusiastic faux-accent, and her sleep-thickened voice echoed oddly from within the recuperacoon. After a moment's sloshing, she and Trivam were looking out at him, tired and hopeful in turn.

Perrut stopped, halfway to the doorway, then turned back. “I guess so,” he said, and they both cheered, albeit weakly. Seeing them like this was enough to make him want to panic, but both trolls were reacting well to the learning lozenge - which meant that they were exhausted, fevered, and unable to eat while the lozenge forced their bodies to develop a whole new set of organs. He hauled a chair out from under Varana's desk and sat down. “All right, all right, settle down.” Perrut ran a thumb along the curve of his horn while he thought. “What kind of story do you want to hear?”

“About Ironhorns and Redlance!” Trivam said.

Perrut winced and tried to hide it in a smile. “How about a different one instead? You guys liked 'The Rose General and the Princess of Witches', right?” He began immediately. “Once, a long time ago, there was a seadweller general named Tenjou - “

“Boss!” whined Varana. “We wanna hear a new story 'bout Ironhorns and Redlance!” She trailed off into harsh coughs, ones that made Perrut a little concerned until he saw her checking to see if he was falling for her pitiful-sick-wriggler act.

Still, he shouldn't discourage her from that sort of trickery, it was good practice for the real world. On the other hand, he wasn't sure he could tell the story yet. Not to mention, it might not be the best thing for sick little trolls.

“Are you sure?” he finally asked. “This one isn't like their other adventures. It's the last story about them I have, really.”

“We're sure, sir!” said Trivam, and Varana was nodding madly beside him.

Well, shit. He leaned back in his chair and dragged his claws through his hair. Without his old grub-books, he had to try and teach them how troll society worked through stumbling, half-remembered lectures couched in stupid stories for grubs wrapped in the fanciful plots he remembered from past FLARP games.

He didn't want to tell this story. He really, really didn't want to.

But they ought to know, and he was responsible for them. Perrut took a deep breath. “Once upon a time...”

* * * __

_Once upon a time, there were four brave trolls, who traveled across Alternia together and apart, and were the best of friends. There was Redlance, from the mountain troll clades, who carried a barbed spear of rust-red steel, as bright and as threatening as the sunrise. There was Ironhorns, whose every inch of skin was covered in cunningly-wrought armor, and who capped his curving horns in iron, as deadly as his ax. There was Bluecloak, a sea-troll pirate queen, whose cloak was the deep blue-green of the sea at night, that she received from the Incandescence Herself. And there was Starsword, their leader, who went wrapped in robes of every caste-color, and who carried a sword taken from the dead hands of a Space Witch that he and his friends killed._

_Together, they embarked on many adventures - battling the Summoner and the Heresiarch, hunting the great black skywhale, and exposing mad witch-cults to the light of Her Imperial Condescension where even the subjugglators failed. This, though, was their last adventure._

_It was just after the four had brought down a rogue behemoth, who shattered a mountain in its death-throes. The four where at their strongest, their teamwork enhanced by Starsword's pale ties with Bluecloak, and the red feelings he and Redlance shared. But things were not as perfect as Starsword thought - Ironhorns waxed caliginous for his friend, and also did not approve of his red romance with Redlance. Starsword was indigo-blooded, and Redlance of the maroon caste, and to Ironhorns such cross-caste concupiscent relationships were abhorrent._

_First, Ironhorns went to Bluecloak, saying, “This is abomination, and you must convince him to stop.” And Bluecloak denied him. “He is happy with her, and she with him,” she said. “And it is no proper moirail's place to interfere with serendipity, which you would know if you had one.” And Ironhorns went away, still resolved on his course._

_Next, he went to Redlance, saying, “This relationship cannot last, for no highblood will approve it - why do you not seek a match with someone closer to your own caste?” And Redlance denied him. “It is not true that no highblood will approve it, because Starsword is indigo, and only seadwellers rank higher than he,” she said. “Also, no highblood's approval matters to me, least of all yours.” And Ironhorns went away, angered but resolved on his course._

_Finally, he went to Starsword, saying, “She is maroon and you, indigo - surely you can see that you cannot fill your red quadrant with one another?” And Starsword denied him. “It is true that our castes are different,” he said. “But our hearts are not, and neither pity nor serendipity recognize blood - do not violet and indigo, blue and teal, gold and maroon all feel the same red passions?” And he turned his back on Ironhorns, who was shamed - but his heart waxed all the blacker._

_The four returned to Ironhorns' hive, as their tradition was to rest and recuperate before returning each to their own hive. When Starsword went to sleep, the moons were just setting over the horizon, foretelling the coming dawn. When he awoke at sunset, it was to smoke, and fire, and screams._

_***_

Perrut jerked awake, sopor sloshing around him in the confines of the recuperacoon. When he finally poked his head out he could see that the sun had just finished setting, and that meant he had gotten a full seven hours of sleep. He yawned widely, scraping sopor from his body as he dragged himself out of the borrowed 'coon. Barzik used much higher quality sopor than he did, Perrut noticed as he dressed. There was no sticky residue to wash and it came out of his hair without trouble, though he didn't want to think about how much of the blueblood's living stipend went towards supplying it.

He yawned again, then did a few stretches and squats. The behemoth had gotten him good, its great tail smashing him into the hillside, before Akhila and Barzik managed to cull it. He staggered towards the ablution block, wiping sleep-crust and dried sopor from his eyes before he rinsed his face and mouth. He'd get an actual shower back at his hive, he decided. Barzik had been kind of weird, lately, and if he hadn't been so tired last morning he would have seriously thought about heading straight back to his hive.

He felt a bit more trollish after he'd cleaned himself up, and left the ablution block in search of the rest of his team. The hive was silent, he noticed, as he entered the nutrition block. “Oi,” he called, and waited. There was no reply. He cocked an ear, but could not hear a thing - and considering his lusus' propensity for surprise strifes, his hearing was very good indeed. “Huh,” he murmured, grabbing a slice of grubloaf and a pod of starberry juice. They were probably outside, he decided. They were all far more evening-featherbeasts than he was - even Akhila, who was so lazy he had to chivvy her into eating most days.

Perrut finished the juice and was chewing contemplatively on the last of grubloaf when he opened the door onto a warzone. The entire lawnring was burning, and familiar-looking shadowy creatures were darting here and there in the firelight. He could hear screaming - the voices of terrified barely-pupated wigglers and the cacophony of their enraged lusii almost overwhelmed by the crackling roar of the flames.

“What the _hell_ ,” he breathed - and then dove to the side as one of the shadowy creatures dropped down from the roof of Barzik's hive. He rolled to his feet, drawing his sword and parrying the creature's next attack instinctively. He recognized it, now that it was up close - it was a FLARPing construct, a bulbous little thing with moon-green eyes and long, clawed arms. He and his team had fought them in the Heresiarch's War campaign, and they had never been closer to being killed. And that was _with_ the FLARP abstractus protecting them. Without it, those claws wouldn't lower his hit points, they would tear him open from crotch to throat.

The monster twitched, eyes dimming and brightening in a pixelated parody of blinking, and Perrut tightened his grip on his sword. He needed to find his friends, before they were hurt or, Sisters forbid, killed by -

It lunged towards him, as fast and lethal as a switchblade, and he sidestepped, whirled and struck in one smooth motion. The thing vanished into nothingness, but he kept his sword out. He _really_ needed to find his friends.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Perrut chanted as he sprinted across another lawn, glanced upwards, and snarled wordlessly. More shadowy constructs circled above, riding the thermals from the burning hives on gauzy wings of smoke. He really, really needed to get out of the open. He turned, running for the nearest hive - a blueblood girl's, if he recalled Barzik's brief summation of the lawnring correctly. “Hopefully she won't take this the wrong way,” he muttered, and kicked in the door just as the first of the fliers dove.

He leaped inside and slammed the door shut again. It shuddered underneath his hands as the shadow constructs hurled themselves against it. His kick had been strong enough to open it in one blow, but it had shattered the latch at the same time - as soon as he stopped leaning against it, it would swing open and his hunters would be on him. He looked around, desperate for anything to jam the door with, and snarled a curse. The blueblood had left her greetingblock bare, like most highbloods. “Fucking antisocial castes!” he hissed, not for the first time. The door shook under his hands again. He shut his eyes, his mind racing over what he had in his sylladex. It was still set for FLARP, meaning that most of the contents were inaccessable, except for his gaming gear -

Perrut grinned and dismissed his sword, then drew out a small hammer and two climbing spikes. “It's not as if you'll need those, Perrut!” he said in a mocking falsetto, kneeling and driving a spike into the ground by the doorjamb. “Fuck you, Akhila, they were worth _every caegar_.” The door sealed, he turned and moved deeper into the unfamiliar hive. He was well-practiced at stealthy exploration - between the sneaking techniques he picked up from trying to avoid his lusus' ambushes and the fact that his team could not sneak up on a blind, deaf wiggler, he had needed to take on the role of scout.

As soon as he left the greetingblock for the hive proper, he was on full alert, keeping to the shadows and taking care to make sure his every step was silent. He could hear movement on the second floor, and crept silently up the stairs. He didn't know the girl who's hive he had broken into, but any troll reaching their fourth sweep had to be a survivor by definition, and she was from the cohort before his - a full sweep older than he. He could use her help finding his friends, and she could use his help getting out of the lawnring alive and reasonably whole. Perrut nodded to himself, his course clear, and came to a stop outside what was probably the girl's respiteblock. He could hear quiet rustlings inside, so he nudged open the door, looked inside, and gagged.

Blood coated almost every surface. Pools of blue glistened in the firelight, and coils of blue-grey intestines were strung out across the floor. He stared, his bloodpusher hammering in his chest, and stared as an off-white scalebeast the size of a cholerbear dipped its broad head down and slurped up another coil of intestine. He could see the upper half of the girl, flung in one corner in a spray of gore, and Perrut was suddenly, shockingly glad he couldn't see her face. A lusus, killing their own troll? That was the thing nightmares were made of, from gutterbloods to seatrolls. He twitched his hand and felt the familiar weight of his blade settle into his palm.

Rogue lusii were every troll's nightmare, but it wouldn't be the first time he put one down. Trolleaters couldn't be left alone; a maddened lusus rarely returned to its natural habits, almost universally seeking out other trolls and their lusii for meals - and since FLARP constructs weren't the least bit alive, it was unlikely the scalebeast would pursue anything but more trolls, and Perrut was against being ambushed by murderous beasts on principle. Better to kill it now, he decided, instead of risking leading it to the rest of his team.

The scalebeast grunted and dipped it's head down for another mouthful of it's charges' guts, and he lunged forward, his sword making a flashing arc as he struck - and staggered back, his blade ringing. “Stars and shadows,” he whispered, eyes wide, as the rogue lusus reared up and roared. “ _Shit!_ ” he howled, and dove out of the way of it's retaliatory strike. He ducked away and left the room in a full sprint, the scalebeast's next attack smashing through the wall beside him.

It was _far_ stronger and faster than it should have been, he thought, pounding down the stairs four at a time. Stealth was abandoned in favor of a panicked escape from the blood-maddened rogue lusus. He vaulted over a couch and took a corner so hard blue-purple tinted the edges of his vision, but the scalebeast stayed just a few steps behind him, roaring madly and dripping blue-tinged spittle from its slavering maw.

He mouthed horrible curses when he reached the dead blueblood's relaxationblock. The only exit he was sure of, he'd blocked off himself. Only one option, then. He seized an endtable and hurled it through the window, then leaped through himself. Shards of glass shredded his clothes and his skin alike, and he left little spatters of indigo when he rolled to his feet and took off running. The scalebeast smashed through the windowframe behind him, hissing like a leafjuice kettle left on the heating element, just as the first of the shadowy constructs landed. He dodged around the first FLARP construct's claws, parried a second's swipe, and dove out of the way of the rogue lusus' charge. It clamped its powerful jaws shut on one of the shadows, which melted into smoke and psychic static.

Perrut grinned, sharp and fierce, as the other constructs turned on the lusus, judging it as the greater threat. Shadowy claws slicers into the scalebeast, spraying blue across the grass, and it hissed and struck again and again, reducing constructs to smoke in bursts of mangled code. More and more appeared, dropping from the smokey skies or pulling themselves from the shadows.

Perrut captchalogued his sword and crept silently away.

***

_Starsword left the abomination to die at the claws of the enemy, for not even the death of a rogue lusus was more important to him than his comrades' well-being. He sought them out, moving from hive to hive and wielding his blade to slay rogue and shadow alike. He found nothing but slain trolls and maddened guardians, or nothing but bloodstains and the near-silent rustlings of the shadowy foe capering in empty respiteblocks and burning hives. He despaired then, until he found Bluecloak's marionette battling beside Redlance, and Starsword moved to join them with joy in his heart_.

***

Perrut found them on the path out of the lawnring. “Oh, thank god,” he whispered when he found his moirail and matesprit fighting side-by-side. The constructs gathered thickly around them, but Akhila's battle-puppet stood tall. She had cast off its trollish form in favor of one more suited to combat. It smashed the shadowy creatures beneath its feet, crushed them in its four great fists, and lashed at them with long, articulated tendrils growing from its misshapen head. Even as he stopped and stared, its mouth gaped unnaturally wide and annihilated a swathe of the enemy in a gout of flame. She must have upgraded it again, he decided.

Ruilzi was darting around the massive puppet, whirling her spear in wide arcs. He winced when he saw that; he'd been training with her for sweeps, but he'd never managed to teach her to stab with the weapon instead of those great, flashy,  _ineffective_ swings. In the end he'd ended up taking her spear and resharpening the edges of the head, working around the barbs. Her stupid, stubborn insistence on doing things her way was what had made him pity her in the first place -

His train of thought derailed abruptly when Ruilzi freed a hand and blasted a construct with psychic lightning. She hated using her psionics in combat. If she was doing so now, then...

Perrut's sword reappeared in his hand as he smashed into the construct horde from the rear, cutting them down in ambush.

“Perrut!” shrieked Ruilzi, grinning madly as she clubbed another with the shaft of her spear. Akhila spared a moment of shadowkilling to wave one of her puppet's free arms.

“Oh my god you are the _worst speartroll_ ,” Perrut said, batting a leaping construct out of the air with a casual backswing and falling into place between his matesprit and moirail. The three formed a triangle, standing back to back and butchering any of the shadow creatures that drew near. The crowd thinned and faded as they were killed faster than the FLARP program could spawn them. Finally, Perrut smashed one into the dirt and crushed its bulbous head beneath his heel and found no new attacker taking its place. He recaptchalogued his sword and wiped his brow with a trembling hand, trying and failing to catch his breath. Ruilzi bounded over and wrapped herself around his arm, and he found himself too exhausted to be embarrassed. He stared at the maroonblood, swiftly assessing her condition - one horn chipped, her short hair cut even shorter in places, shallow claw wounds on both arms, nothing life-threatening - and then yanked her into a tight embrace.

“I'm so glad you guys are ok,” he muttered into her hair. One of her curling horns jabbed him in the cheek when she giggled, but he didn't care in the slightest. “But, where's Barzik? And Akhila's actual self?”

Ruilzi's smile faded. “We haven't seen Barzik. He had said he wanted to show us all something and went outside, but then - “ she waved a hand helplessly at the still-burning lawnring, “ - all that happened. And Akhila's - “

“Right here, darlings!” the seatroll in question caroled, clambering out of her puppet's torso with something slung over one shoulder. Perrut studied her as well - no wounds, one very young troll carried on right shoulder - wait, _what?_

“Akhila why the _hell_ do you have a wiggler with you?”

“Well, I need to find experimental subjects _somewhere_ ,” she began, and Perrut pulled free of his matesprit and began frantically patting Akhila's head and shoulders, making shooshing noises. She batted away his hands and laughed, and he could hear Ruilzi giggling from behind him, and he slumped. “Screw you both,” he muttered, and his moirail patted him sympathetically.

“Oh, we're only teasing, Perrut dearest. Ruilzi found the wiggler when we were looking for you, actually. Found it with its dead lusus, some sort of worm, and your lovely maroonblood just _insisted_ that we bring the wiggler with us.” Akhila shook the little troll - high lime or low olive, Perrut guessed - but it didn't make a sound, just stared blankly.

“The poor thing had to put down its own lusus,” Ruilzi said, looking sick at the very idea. Perrut winced in sympathy with the catatonic troll-child. Killing a guardian at its age, when the lusus-bond was still forming? He was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to do it.

“We'd be doing it a favor by culling it now,” he said. Ruilzi glared, and he lifted his hands protectively. “What? Don't look at me like that, you _know_ I'm right. It's too old for a new lusus-bond and too young to live on its own - it'd starve to death if it was lucky. If it wasn't...” He shrugged uncomfortably. “Cholerbears, musclebeasts, behemoths, lupent-packs...the only way it could survive would be if an adult took it under their protection.” He felt sick just at the thought of that. Jadebloods rarely had anything to do with trolls that weren't in their quadrants, inclade, or grubs they were watching over, and they were the only legitimate adults on Alternia. The rest...draft-dodgers, heretics, mutants, criminals hiding from the Cruellest Bar - nothing good. A wiggler without a lusus would probably be culled on sight by any of those, and if they weren't, they could look forward to a life as a living filial pail.

Ruilzi kept on glaring, cheeks flushing rust-red. “I could take care of it,” she snapped.

“Your lusus - “

“My lusus is a _land anenome_. I can bring the wiggler in like I brought you guys in, and it'd be fine!”

Perrut blinked. He'd forgotten about Ruilzi's lusus, or specifically how very, very dumb it was. She'd given it a sample of the team's blood, and it had promptly ignored them entirely - and since she built her hive in the center of her lusus' barbed, venomous tentacles, being ignored left them safer than they were in their own hives.

“That could actually work,” Akhila said. “Frankly, I'm shocked a land-anenome had enough neurons for the uplift process to take in the first place.” Perrut laughed when Ruilzi shifted her glare to his moirail, who was completely unaffected. “Don't be a jerk, Perrut,” the seadweller said. “Your lusus is a freak, too.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, hush, my darling. Ruilzi's lusus is just...well, dumb as a stack of hiverubble. Yours actually _likes_ other trolls _.”_

“I don't see you complaining when Iritus brings you cholerbear haunches,” Perrut snapped.

“Of course I don't,” huffed Akhila, over the sound of Ruilzi's giggling. “Cholerbears don't come near the coast often, and they certainly don't swim - but they are _remarkably_ delicious.”

Perrut folded his arms across his chest and glared. Akhila gave him a brief, perfunctory _pap_ across his cheek and they grinned at each other.

“All right,” said Ruilzi, clapping her hands and catching Perrut and Akhila's attention. “What's the plan now? Akhila, are you feeling any better?”

Perrut's whirled around to glare at his moirail, who shrugged unrepentantly. “Well enough, this far out. We're near the edge of whatever it is.”

“Whatever _what_ is?” asked Perrut. “It's just a hacked game-grub. Barzik had been talking about how some of his neighbors had been jailbreaking and selling them.”

“Something more than that,” Ruilzi said. “There's...something in the air, it's driving the lusii mad, and Akhila said it was making her sick, too.”

“You lovely maroonblood saved me, Perrut dear,” Akhila smiled wickedly, fluttering her eyelashes and fins at them both. “Good moirails share,” she said, low and throaty. “Surely you wouldn't mind sharing a matesprit with me, dearest darling? I _do_ so want to show my...gratitude.”

Ruilzi squeaked, flushing brick-red and ducking behind Perrut. He shook his head despairingly at his moirail. “I'll have to, ah, show her gratitude for you,” he said. “But that will be later! I'm putting on my leader trousers.”

“Trousers?” whispered Ruilzi from behind Perrut.

“Bifurcated lower limb garments, darling,” Akhila whispered back.

“ _Fancy_ bifurcated lower limb garments,” Perrut interrupted, “and I'll thank you both while I am leading.”

“Pontificating,” chorused Akhila and Ruilzi with the ease of long practice.

“That too!” Perrut ran his tongue along his fangs while he thought, and then nodded firmly. “All right. Akhila, take the wiggler and head to my hive. Iritus is a freak, he probably won't hurt the thing, and he likes you. Stick it in the spare recuperacoon for now, tell Iritus I said to keep an eye on it, then come back and wait...Ruilzi, what's the edge of the game-grub's range?”

The maroonblood concentrated for a moment, her eyes flickering black-white-red. “About two hundred meters up the path,” she said. A stray spark flickered up and down her horns until Perrut snuffed it under his thumb. She squeaked and shivered at his touch, and Perrut grinned. Akhila coughed pointedly.

“And what will you two be doing? Besides each other,” she asked archly. Perrut blushed.

“We - um. We'll go back into the lawnring and try to find Barzik; he's the best fighter out of all of us, I doubt he's dead. Ruilzi, do you think you can find him?” He paused, but she didn't answer. “Ruilzi?” he asked again, a little louder.

She looked up suddenly from her attempts to get him to rub her horns again.  “What? Oh, um. I'm not sure, honestly! I'm pretty good at telepathy and stuff, but I'm not exactly a strong psionic.” She butted her head against him again, and Perrut gave in, scratching at the raised skin at the base of her horns. She purred madly, her eyes fluttering shut. Akhila rolled her eyes and twitched a finger. Her puppet shuddered to life and carefully lifted Perrut and set him down again a few meters away.

“Hey,” yelped Ruilzi. “He wasn't done yet!”

“I'm just being a good moirail and helping dear Perrut overcome his flaws. His many, many flaws, like not knowing when the right time for hornrubs is!”

“It's _always_ the right time for hornrubs,” muttered Ruilzi sulkily.

“I seem to remember you being just as bad,” Perrut said to his moirail, nettled. “Or was it someone else who built us a pile out of FLARP dungeon traps last sweep? It was certainly you who got stabbed by one that wasn't disarmed yet!”

“We're talking about _your_ adorable flaws, darling,” Akhila said, her cheeks tinged violet. “Let's get back to the plan before the game-grubs can spawn more mobs, hm?”

“Fine, fine,” Perrut said. “Ruilzi and I will go in and find Barzik, then get out again. The game-grubs won't last until dawn, as hard as they must be running - especially since it doesn't seem like there's a clouder to run maintenance on them.” He summoned his sword and gave it a flourish, and Ruilzi hefted her barbed spear beside him. “Everyone ready?”

Akhila nodded, putting the catatonic wiggler into her puppet's open torso, and then pulled the other two trolls into a hug. “Be careful, the both of you. Ruilzi, keep an eye on Perrut for me, we both know he has the self-preservation instinct of a depressed polar squeakbeast.”

Ruilzi giggled and saluted. “Aye aye, highblood!” she chirped. Perrut glared at the both of them. “Let's...let's just get going, ok?”

***

_With that, the three split apart. Bluecloak took the wounded troll-child to safety while Redlance and Starsword returned to the battlefield to seek out and rescue the missing Ironhorns. The fires in the village were fading and the smoke vanishing in the night wind. The stars and the moons shown brightly on the two as they traveled, routing their foes whenever and wherever they found them. They reached the middle of the village unhurt. What a pair they made!_

_They searched, but they could not find Ironhorns. “Can your spells find him?” asked Starsword._

“ _No,” said Redlance in sorrow. “The curse that lies over the village is too strong for my own magic to work.”_

“ _Then let us end the spell,” said Starsword. “There are two focuses for it. I shall destroy the further of the two and then return here. You destroy the closer and then attempt your spell once more.” Wth that, the couple embraced and separated._

_Starsword fought his way up to the top of a tall hive, and found one of the focuses there. He seized it and dashed it upon the rocks at the base of the hive, and the shadow foes vanished in the moonlight. He returned to where he had parted from Redglare, a song in his heart, but that song shattered when he heard the clash of weapons and his heart's treasure screaming. He raced to her rescue, his sword raised high and shining in the moonslight._

_He was too late._

***

“Ruilzi...” Perrut whispered, shock and horror choking him. “Barzik, what - how - “

Barzik looked up from where he knelt next to Ruilzi's head, and then glanced over to where the rest of her body lay. A snarl passed across his face as he surged to his feet, his armor rattling, and faced Perrut directly. He shouldered his ax and Perrut's eyes widened at the maroon dripping from the edge.

“How could you,” he whispered, throat tight.

“ _Easily_ ,” sneered Barzik. “She was just a lowblood,” he continued, and then paused, studying the other boy intently.

“You never cared about blood before - “

“Before you started _rutting_ with a _rustblood_ ,” Barzik cut Perrut off with a yell. “What in the hell were you _thinking_ , Perrut? She was so far below you - she had _no right_ to pity a highblood! _Any_ highblood!”

Perrut stared at his friend. “I don't - Barzik, were you _jealous_? Is that why - “

“Jealous,” Barzik snarled. “ _Jealous_ of the gutterblood? I never pitied you in my _life_ , you disgusting _asshole_.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” said Perrut, a growl in his voice. “Disgusting? You are calling _me_ disgusting, _murderer_?” His grip on his sword's hilt tightened until the leather creaked.

Barzik's sneer faded, replaced by a look of excitement. “I _would_ ,” he said, excited, almost stammering. “I _would_ call you disgusting. Falling for her - she probably _mindfucked_ you into it - “

“She was my _matesprit_ ,” Perrut yelled, wild-eyed and furious.

Barzik smiled eagerly, hefting his ax, and said, “Well, she's just _meat_ now.”

Perrut howled, all words gone, and leaped at the other boy. Barzik laughed joyfully and parried Perrut's first wild cut. “Look at you,” the cobalt-blood said, twisting aside a second blow. “Waving that sword around like you're a wiggler with a stick! You forget everything you know about fighting - everything _I taught you -_ just because a lowblood got culled?” He laughed, harsh and bitter, ducked under Perrut's outstretched blade, and drove a punch like a falling meteor into the indigo-blood's chest.

Barzik tore the sword from Perrut's suddenly-weakened grip and hurled both weapons to the side. “I _hate_ you,” hissed Perrut, fangs bared, his eyes wide and furious. Barzik laughed, low and cruel.

“ _Finally_ ,” he said. “I hate you too, you worthless, dumb fuck - I'm _glad_ I killed her - “ He kissed Perrut, catching the other boy's lip between his teeth and biting down.

Something in Perrut's head gave way. He shoved the other boy away, wild-eyed and bleeding. “Oh, no,” the indigo-blood said, wiping at the blood dripping down his chin. It smeared across his face, his hand, and he licked it off. “Oh, no, brother.”

Barzik stared at Perrut's tongue and shook himself. “I - what? I thought - “

“No, brother,” said Perrut, calm and apologetic. “There's no way that I can be filling a pail with a FUCKING PAINT CAN, MOTHERFUCKER.”

Barzik recoiled like he'd been punched, looking panicky, and scrambled for his ax. He whirled and struck - and the other boy casually caught it one-handed and yanked it free. “No,” Perrut said, and hurled the ax away. It tumbled end-over-end, moonslight flashing off the blade, before it buried itself in a hivewall so deeply that the axhead almost vanished.

Barzik jerked free and stumbled back . “Perrut! Perrut, please!” He just smiled, shaking his head - and then vanished. An instant later, Barzik tumbled to the dirt, screaming.

“Hard to stand, without legs,” Perrut said, holding one of Barzik's in one hand like a club. He smashed it across the blueblood's face. “Stop kicking yourself while you're down, Barzik, that's your FUCKING KISMESIS' JOB! That's what you want ME FOR, you loathesome littleshit.”

Barzik's eyes were very wide, and his face was pale. “Perrut - please listen - _I didn't even attack her!_ She tried to stab me first - “

“Don't care, brother.”

“ - she said I'd planned all this, but I didn't, I was just taking the opportunity, I didn't even mean to hurt her, Perrut, I'm begging you, _please don't kill me - “_

“Shhhh,” said Perrut, and cradled Barzik's face between his hands. He could feel the other boy trembling in his hands, and he brushed his thumbs over Barzik's eyes. “Shhhhh,” he said again.

“Please,” Barzik whimpered. “I didn't mean for any of this...” Translucent blue tears trickled out from under Perrut's thumbs. He leaned down, his lips almost touching the shell of the other boy's ear.

“Thing is, brother, I DON'T CARE,” he said, and drove his thumbs down. Barzik _shrieked_ , high and thin like a wounded hopbeast, and Perrut started to squeeze. There were a couple of muted pops, a sharp wet crunch, and Barzik's screams went suddenly silent.

Perrut stood up, shoulders heaving, his hands dripping cobalt and bone-shards, took two steps, and promptly threw up.

“Oh, god,” he whispered, over and over again. “Oh, god.”

He didn't say anything else for a long time.

***

_Starsword left the village alone. Bluecloak met him on the path to his own hive, and looked for the others, but did not see them._

“ _Where are Ironhorns and Redlance? You said that you would return with them both, but you are alone,” she asked him._

_Starsword looked away, and drew forth Redlance's great barbed spear, and set it next to his resting-place. “She died fighting, as well as any troll could wish,” he said._

_Bluecloak gazed at the spear in sorrow. “Where is Ironhorns, then? For surely she died to save him or you,” she asked._

_Starsword drew forth Ironhorn's great ax and set it beside his resting-place. “He died fighting, as well,” he said, but could not bring himself to finish the benediction. Instead he cast off his great sun-robes and hung it next to the spear and the ax. “I will stay and guard the troll-child as Redlance wished to,” Starsword said, “for I am tired and wish to travel no more. You may lead a new group if you wish, but I will fight no more forever.”_

_Bluecloak embraced him then. “You are a part of me, and I could no more travel without you than I could without my heart,” she said. “You are mine and I am yours, and if you will fight no longer then I will stay by your side.” And she hung her beautiful sea-cloak next to Starsword's robes._

_***_

When Perrut finished speaking, neither Varana nor Trivam spoke. He had begun to think they were asleep when Varana finally said, quiet and careful, “Is that why you don't wanna play pretend with me an' Trivam, boss?”

“Yeah,” said Perrut, after a minute. “Yeah, that's why.”

“I don't think I wanna pretend to be Ironhorns no more,” she continued, contemplative. “But...”

“Hm?”

“...can I keep the ax? Only, it's really a nice ax and all the best Berserkillers have axes - “

Perrut laughed out loud when he stood. “Hush, the both of you, and go to sleep. You'll feel better in the evening, I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah, boss,” Varana muttered, and he could hear her sloshing around in the recuperacoon as she resettled herself for sleep.

Perrut was shutting the door when he heard Trivam say, “Sir?”

“Yeah, kid?”

There was a moment of silence. Then, Trivam said, “I'm sorry about your friends, sir.”

Perrut screwed his eyes shut and wiped at them with one hand. “...thanks, kid. Get some sleep,” he said, and shut the door. He leaned his head against the cool stone wall of the hallway for a moment. “Fuck,” he said, finally, and headed towards his husktop. He was tired, even empty, but it was a good sort of empty. He wanted to talk to Akhila.

Maybe, he thought, do some reminiscing.


End file.
